Sanctum - Infinite LSTs? What You Need to Know
Infinite SOL Staking, Pets Airdrop Program, & More
SOL has been a fast mover in this recent market bounce. It’s a good time to evaluate the chain’s rapidly evolving DeFi landscape, especially considering the outflows from Marginfi as well as Kamino Finance’s recent TGE. One interesting protocol garnering more attention is Sanctum. Sanctum is a $SOL-based LST with some innovative offerings. Sanctum is sort of similar to the concept unshETH brought to the table. unshETH is an $ETH based LST that diversifies yields and staking risks across multiple popular liquid staking providers. Sanctum is sort of similar in this sense, offering $INF which is an LST that resembles a basket of 18 different $SOL LSTs.
An attractive attribute of Sanctum is that builders can easily deploy their own LSTs. Validators can make accessing delegated staking for their pool much easier through the Sanctum UI. For example, Helius, an RPC and API provider company on Solana, has deployed their own LST in hSOL. To top things off, the protocol does indeed have a points program…
Stay alert, stay informed ⬇
Background on Sanctum
Sanctum is sort of like a frontend dApp for Solana staking. The protocol’s self-stated goal is to help in creating an infinite number of LSTs. The case for a vast number of LSTs is that it does diversify risk for both users and the chain at large, while also maybe helping to expand Solana network effects by making native staking through various providers much more accessible.
Sanctum got its start as a protocol called ‘unstakeit, which used the tech and infrastructure that Sanctum still uses but just for a more specific usecase. As one would guess by the name, unstakeit was built around the problem of illiquid native staking of Solana and the withdrawal time associated with unstaking, around 2-3 days. unstakeit allowed users to swap staked SOL for liquid SOL instantly, jumping the line. The protocol found integrations with popular staking services, including blazeSOL. The way this works is through the concept of ‘stake accounts’. This premise isn’t that unsimilar to the current offerings of Sanctum, which expand greatly on this concept. Stake accounts
The project’s rebrand took place back in August and involved a full integration with Jupiter Exchange, marking the inception of jupSOL. Today, this LST has ~$95M in value staked. The initial change from unstakeit to Sanctum aimed to make Sanctum the native ‘stability pool’ on top of Solana, providing a Reserve of over 200k $SOL.
Sanctum’s Offerings
Users of Sanctum can basically deposit a number of LSTs, along with native SOL, into the Sanctum Infinity Pool, receiving the INF At this time, 1 INF is the equivalent of ~0.83 SOL. The exchange rates and parities between other LSTs varies.
Sanctum UI
The INF token represents this highly diversified basket of LSTs that users deposit. The supported LSTs, of which there are over 40 at this point, can be easily traded for one another. Sanctum makes it easy to get insights into a wallet’s native SOL staking, with the introduction of stake accounts right on the platform’s frontend. These stake accounts, which would be 1 per each validator a staker has delegated to, can be easily converted immediately into supported LSTs.
Sanctum Airdrop Prospects
Sanctum’s Wonderland Rewards Program at the end of last month. This program has some unique features compared to typical rewards initiatives. For starters, the protocol has implemented an interesting ‘Pets’ program, gamified rewards sort of resembling Pokémon.
The way it works is that those who hold at least 0.1 SOL worth of LST. It’s worth noting that the LSTs need to be held in a user’s wallet, not deposited onto an exchange or lending platform. There are 18 different pets, 1 per each LST. The actual Sanctum platform comprises of more than 18 LSTs, but not all of them are integrated into the Wonderland program. These pets are basically streamlined XP points, 10 per 1 SOL held of each corresponding LST. These XP points help to level up pets. Referrals also come into play, granting a bonus on XP earned, as well as the opportunity to earn cupcakes when thresholds of XP from referrals are met.
Cute pets and cupcakes aside, it is expected that Sacntum will airdrop based on this program, though the details are not clear and a TGE is not even confirmed yet. Sanctum is competing with Marginfi for the #5 Solana protocol by TVL. Marginfi notoriously has not yet launched their token which resulted in a lot of negative community sentiment and one of their Co-founders leaving.
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